This is Throwbacks, a newsletter by me, Michael Weinreb, about sports, history, culture and politics, and everything in-between. Please join the mailing list and share, on social media or through e-mail or however you feel comfortable sharing. (It’s still FREE to join the list for now: Just click “None” on the “subscribe now” page.) If you like what you read, please spread the word, or consider chipping in and allowing me the time to do a little more research on on these posts. You’ll get full access to the archive of more than 100 previous posts, as well.
I.
One Wednesday evening in December of 1984, when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was 37 years old, the New Jersey Nets held a retirement ceremony for him. They brought out some of his old high-school teammates from New York City during the pregame; they sat his parents in the stands.
This was the latest stop on what was purported to be the Kareem Farewell Tour: In Cleveland, the Cavaliers had presented a scholarship to a local community college in Jabbar’s name, and the next day in Washington, D.C.—where Jabbar’s Lakers would face the Washington Bullets—had already been declared Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Day. All this had been planned weeks in advance, but what had not been planned was that earlier on that same Wednesday in New Jersey, Abdul-Jabbar quietly agreed to a contract extension with the Lakers. His teammate, Michael Cooper, who had not heard about the extension, cried during the ceremony. “I hope he retires after I do,” Cooper said after the game.
All of this happened a month after the country had overwhelmingly re-elected a 73-year-old president of the United States who many thought was too old and infirm to continue the job. But Ronald Reagan won, and remained president until 1988, during which he presided over the end of the Cold War, even as many suspect he may have been in cognitive decline; and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—who had been carefully considering, and then ignoring, calls for his retirement for the entirety of the 1980s, and who wound up turning that conversation into the one of the most memorable movie gags of the 1980s—played professional basketball until he was 42 years old.
In those four-and-a-half years after his premature retirement celebration, Abdul-Jabbar made the All-Star team every year, twice finished in the top-10 in the MVP voting, never played fewer than 74 games in a season, and made the NBA Finals four times, winning three titles. He retired for good in 1989, just a year before Michael Cooper, nine years his junior, played his final season in the NBA.
II.
One of the most fascinating elements of sports is the way it compresses timelines. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a top-tier professional athlete for two decades, which in itself is remarkable; for most, anything more than a decade-long career is admirable. The life cycle is short, and it leaves young people facing the kinds of questions about viability and usefulness that are normally reserved for much older people.
Which brings us to Klay Thompson.
III.
A few days before Thompson turned 34 years old in early February, he sat out the end of a close game between the Golden State Warriors and the Brooklyn Nets. This was not the first time it had happened this season; the Warriors are at a fascinating juncture where they are attempting to meld youth and veterans into a viable combination to win a title before their three biggest stars age out. And while his backcourt mate Steph Curry is still one of the league’s best players, Thompson, after a series of injuries, has taken a definitive step back from his prime.
And after that Nets game, Thompson’s emotional anguish was palpable.
“Yeah, you kidding me?” he told reporters, when asked how hard it was to sit out the end of a tight game. “To go from one of the best players …”
He trailed off for a moment.
“It’s hard for anybody,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you. It’s really hard.”
This is difficult to watch for many reasons, but most of all because Thompson is one of the most affable athletes of his generation. This is a guy who once did a random television interview about scaffolding and who regularly drives a boat to work. He is soft-spoken and self-aware and well-liked, even by those who find the Warriors’ dynasty detestable. Hating Klay Thompson is like holding a grudge against kittens. But then, I suppose there are some people who might look at that quote from Thompson and not see a man wrestling honestly with his own inevitable professional demise, but see a man who has somehow gone soft.
IV.
Last week, The New York Times ran a controversial story headlined, “Why the Age Issue Is Hurting Biden So Much More Than Trump.” The piece explored the idea that while both major 2024 presidential candidates are far past their prime, one is perceived as much older than the other because he does not project the same kind of overt strength as the other. “When Trump makes those kinds of faux pas, he just brushes it off, and people don’t say, ‘Oh, he’s aging.’” said one expert on leadership behavior, which I guess is an actual thing. “He makes at least as many mistakes as Joe Biden, but because he does it with this bravado, it doesn’t seem like senility. It seems like passion.
“Trump is big,” this expert said. “He simply takes over. He has that kind of full-charge-ahead persona that does correlate with being younger, healthier, more active. Biden doesn’t. He is a different kind of person. And, unfortunately, in this situation, it doesn’t work out well.”
This is an utterly facile assessment, and yet sadly kind of true. One candidate seems at least somewhat more self-aware of his age; the other seems wholly determined to ignore it. One candidate became a national figure in part because of his emotional awareness; the other candidate became a national figure because of his cold Machiavellian instincts. And so the national argument we’re having right now is arguably less about aging and more about how we perceive aging.
V.
Back in 1984, Ronald Reagan, while campaigning for re-election, often projected strength by riding horses and working outdoors on his California ranch. Whether he was up to the job had nothing to do with the optics of his public presence, but he knew it mattered because he was always an actor at heart. At the same time, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—one of the most intelligent and introspective athletes of the 20th century—initially presumed that his time had come long before it actually arrived, perhaps because he was so self-aware.
In the end, both of them managed to turn their age into a memorable on-screen punchline.
I don’t have any real answers here; I have my opinions on these things, and you have yours. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the compressed timeline of sports, it’s that these questions about aging are difficult and complex. But it would be nice if, at least this once, we didn’t mistake bravado for strength.
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Thanks, Michael, for the insightful and thoughtful piece. What we're watching during this presidential campaign is what all of us, deep down, have always known . . . everyone ages differently. It's not fair but it's true. That said, I'm not sure any of us can know, or will know, anything concrete about either candidate's mental acuity, memory, etc., because we only see what their handlers allow us to see. Also not fair but true. That's politics.
As a lifelong sports fan, I've marked eras in my life with the emergence and, later, retirement of favorite players and stars on my teams and others. I think I first realized I was not immortal when Magic Johnson announced he had been diagnosed with AIDS and was retiring. It's interesting to watch my boys, 15 and 11, come to the same realization as they watch players like Klay, Lebron, Steph, etc. age and, soon, retire.
Have a great weekend. Thank you for doing what you do.
There is something karotic about this piece being published right after Klay's 35-point performance coming off the bench last night, which I was glad to see, being a fan of his as well. He's an introspective guy and he's had to overcome so much in his career due to injury that I hope he'll be able to embrace whatever his best role is in this chapter